The recovery of the holiday home market was apparent in 2016. The interest from abroad was further reinforced with demand coming from Europe, Russia, China, USA, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and UAE.
Demand is still focused on the main tourist destinations as well as in the Athenian Riviera. Holiday home buyers can be divided in
two categories.
Those who see the holiday home as an investment and expect a high return through either through property rental or sale with better terms in the future. The majority of interest is in properties in destinations with existing track records and within a price range of €500k to €1,5million.
The second category of buyers are those who acquire a property for personal use, looking for exclusive seafront villas with all the modern amenities and are willing to pay even more than €3million. There is still a gap in prices between buyers and sellers but this division is being bridged at a fast pace.
We believe the volume of transactions remains still below the country’s potential but has substantially improved
as compared to 2015. This recovery is more evident in prime destinations. The foreign capital income for residences reached €122.3 million for the period between January to August 2016 recording an increase of 4.6% compared to the same period in 2015. An increase in foreign capital is expected in the last months of the year.
A noteworthy volume of property transactions are carried out directly abroad as in many cases the sellers prefer to be paid in their foreign accounts – due to capital controls. This trend grew substantially in the previous year indicating the upturn in the holiday home market and a further increase of foreign capital income.
The increasing demand for rental of luxury holiday homes encouraged a record number of owners to let their homes, with approximately 11,000 holiday homes licensed by EOT (Greek National Tourism Organization). More than 70% of these homes were registered in the last three years, in part to compensate for the lack of prime hotel resorts. High-end holiday homes available for rental offer attractive returns to their owners.
According to our latest report the average gross yield achieved in the prime Greek holiday destinations such as Mykonos, Santorini, Paros, Rhodes, etc. is much higher than that in the competitive destinations of the Mediterranean such as Ibiza, St. Tropez, Cannes, etc.
We believe the future prospects of the holiday home market are very strong as Greece is increasingly one of the most attractive destinations for European holiday makers, with year round weather, excellent conditions and a growing global draw of young affluent visitors. compliments of Algean Property
